Posted on 11/16/2006 9:54:57 AM PST by presidio9
The US Roman Catholic Church has asked a criminology school to delve into the darkest pages of its history by probing the causes of a priest sex abuse scandal.
At a meeting due to end Thursday in the eastern city of Baltimore, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to disburse 335,000 dollars to fund the first three phases of a study by New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
"It will be a groundbreaking study, never done before in the US, nor in the world," Bishop Gregory Aymond, who chairs the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, told AFP.
"We don't know what would come out of it, but we are going to tell the truth," said Aymond, of Austin, Texas.
In 2002, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice had made a list of complaints and pedophilia cases in the US Catholic Church since 1985, when one of the first scandals came to light with the case of a Louisiana priest.
The university will now look into the "social and historical context" of sex abuse to see if such cases are more frequent in the Church than in the rest of society, notably in schools and youth clubs, Aymond said.
The Church wants to "look at what is unique" in the priest sex abuse crisis, he said.
The first part of the study would be completed in 2008 and made public, although the names of suspected priests would be omitted.
In the second part, the university will evaluate the Church leadership's response to sex abuse cases.
"We want to see where we failed and made some mistakes, and learn from those who handled it well," Aymond said.
The study will also paint a psychological profile of pedophiliac priests by reviewing cases in treatment centers.
The review will aim to show "to what extent is a priest sexual abuser profile the same as the psychological profile of the non-priests who are sex offenders," Aymond said.
The university will also interview abuse victims and examine education at seminaries over the decades.
The majority of priests accused of sex abuse were trained in the 1960s and 1970s in seminaries where psychological tests and sexuality education have since been introduced.
A final phase of the study will make proposals on how to prevent sex abuse and help victims.
"Our goal is to ascertain the causes of the clergy sexual abuse crisis and if we need to change any method we have now," said Teresa Kettlekamp, the executive director of the bishops conference's Office of Child and Youth Protection, which was created in 2002, in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.
But the study would also be useful to schools and youth groups, Church officials said.
"The pathology of abusing children isn't unique; it's a societal problem," Kettlekamp said.
"We are hoping it will be a big, big help to the society in general," she said.
Paul was a Pharisee; a member of the ruling counsel.
If a Jewish fellow was NOT married, he was looked at, shall we say, a bit funny?
Some scholars think that he HAD been married, and something must have happened to his wife.
Since he had experienced both sides of the fence, he could give his opinion on things.
Pedophiles go where the kids are. And married men can be pedophiles too (gay or straight).
see above
Sorry, I really do not understand what you are trying to say???
No tolerance wouldn't necessarily mean fewer priests. How many men have left the seminary over the lavender-ness of the place?
Because the Church cannot divide what God has united (marriage). This is also why the Church frowns on divorce. As another aside, this is the main rationale behind "annulments". An annulment isn't a divorce, by any stretch of the imagination; it's a declaration by committe, approved (eventually) by the Holy See, that the marriage in question never existed. But I digress.
No it is the Catholic Church that has molded the priesthood into what it wants.He(Christ) did not require his apostles to be celibate. This is a manmade teaching based on middle age thinking.
Again, we seem to be going around in circles here. Let me lay it out plainly:
Historically speaking, we didn't have a Bible until approximately the 4th Century AD. Since "Christ and his Apostles didn't use the Bible we have today" does that mean we shouldn't have a Bible? Again, as I stated previously, we Catholics believe that the original deposit of faith given to us by Christ, through His Apostles, is continuing to reveal itself even today, through the help of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium He guides. It was a mustard seed back in the time of Christ; today it has grown into a mighty tree, and will continue to grow until His Return. What does this mean for the "no celibate preists in Jesus' time"? It means that's a historical fact, but it doesn't mean it was meant for ALL time. If it were, then we should throw out our Bibles.
But HAD he been married?
Amen!
Scripture or...
Tradition?
A meaningless feminist trope meant to denigrate historical cultures who did not hold to the false feminist nostrum that men and women are identical and have identical roles in society.
Things are different now.
Truth does not change with the times.
If he chose the 21st century to reveal himself I can guarantee you that women would be chosen.
What an inordinately prideful statement - on what authority do you provide a guarantee of the actions of the sovereign Lord of the universe?
Fact is that in his entourage women played major roles but the writers of the gospels, all men never reported on those events.
I didn't know the Anointed One of Israel was a hip hop celebrity with an "entourage."
Unless you have some special knowledge that no one else is privy to, what we do know about the events of Christ's life on earth are set down in the Gospels - so your supposed "facts" are not facts at all, but your own fanciful imaginings without any historical basis.
Basically, you are saying that either:
(1) God is a liar, because the Scriptures He revealed to us give us a false picture of His earthly ministry
or
(2) God is powerless to prevent mortal men from distorting His Scriptures - His Word - with lies and omissions.
Again the male dominated society.
Again the anachronistic feminist trope.
Mary Magdaline was a major player and it was she who first witnessed the risen Christ.
A "major player?" Did she option Paul's epistles for publication or negotiate an agency fee for Peter's appointment as Prince of the Apostles?
Mary Magdalene was a faithful and humble follower of Jesus. She was not a "player" in some earthly game of power or position or prestige.
So here Christ elevates women to the same level as men.
In point of fact, Christ placed one woman - His mother - on a level of grace higher than He gave to any man who ever lived.
Men and women are not "equal" any more than up and down are "equal" - people are not equivalent units to be shuffled around interchangeably.
Every human being is a unique individual with a purpose and a vocation who was created specifically and specially by God.
Get the message?
If the message is that Christ somehow ordained Mary Magdalene because he vouchsafed to her the vision of His risen glory, you have missed the entire point of the Gospels.
No one has a right to demand anything of Christ - the sons of Zebedee were taught that lesson.
No one has any right to be ordained.
It is a privilege.
And let me step back and contextualize how preposterous your notion of the "Jesus, the helplessly timebound Messiah" is.
First, the Jewish tradition venerated women - Jews made pilgrimages to the tombs of the holy matriarchs and counted Deborah as one of the judges of Israel. Zipporah rescued Moses himself from beinmg destroyed by God's wrath. Judith rescued Jerusalem from Nebuchadnezzar. Every year the Jews celebrated a special festival in honor of Esther, who rescued the exiled Jewish people from destruction.
The list of Jewish venerations for holy women could go on for ages.
So the Jews were not averse at all to the notion of God appointing holy women. It surely would not have offended them.
The pagan peoples around the Jews had entire priesthoods that were open only to women, priesthoods like that of the great goddess Cybele, whose priestesses were waited on hand and foot by castrated male slaves and who decided when sowing and harvest were permitted - i.e. they had the power to feed or starve the people.
So the pagan peoples around the Jews would not have hesitated for a second to accept women religious leaders.
So even if Jesus was truly worried about not offending anyone's sensibilities he would have had no cause to worry by naming women as his emissaries (Apostles).
Of course, Jesus did not care at all about offending the sensibilities of anyone, Jew or pagan.
He commanded His Apostles to violate the Sabbath by gathering grain on the Sabbath.
He publicly violated the Sabbath by healing a man in the synagogue of Caphernaum in the presence of the synagogue's leaders.
He publicly claimed to be God Almighty - the worst blasphemy possible among the Jews and a scarcely more respectable claim among the pagans.
He publicly advocated cannibalism in the minds of the Jews by offering them His blood to drink and His flesh to eat - the worst kind of uncleanness possible according to the Law.
Jesus was not constrained at all by any social mores.
He ate with publicans and with prostitutes - offenses the Jewish community normally responded to with shunning and excommunication from the synagogue.
Jesus appointed whom He appointed because it pleased Him and His heavenly Father to do so.
The Lord of the universe was not motivated by any timidity or peevishness regarding social opinions.
Indeed! ;^)
Yup!
(How old is OLD; OH?)
Amen!
Uh, sorry about that. I'm better at driving a starship than spelling.
And we wonder WHY there are abuses.....
Too much!
HERETIC!!
;^)
All your life, huh? I went to Catholic school for 12 years, and I only knew a handful of priests in all that time. (Actually, most of them were fine. A couple I didn't much like, but never heard a breath of rumor about.)
But I suppose if you've gone to Catholic schools for what? 30, 40, 50 years?, you must know thousands of priests and so are perfectly competent to generalize.
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